Archive - 2012

When the Peace Corps started  on March 1, 1961 there were few guidelines on how to train Peace Corps Volunteers for work in the developing world. Ordinary Americans had rarely been trained systematically for service overseas. As a result most Americans living abroad, whether privately or as officials, did not have a real understanding of the society in which they found themselves. There was no such thing as Cross Culture Training in 1961. The Peace Corps, setting up shop, planned to avoid this. So, of course,  the agency called a meeting! The Associate Director Lawrence Dennis actually sponsored a series of  what was called Peace Corps Institutes that brought together people from government agencies, universities, foundations, business, labor and professional and academic societies. Conferences were next convened to discuss how to train for particular nations around the world. Next conference were held to get advice on how to train Volunteers for . . .

High Risk/High Gain criteria was only the first phase of the early Peace Corps selection process. In theory (and those of us who were around in those days remember being victims of a lot of ‘theory’) selection began with a person filling out the questionnaire and returning it to the Peace Corps. This process of volunteering represented a kind of ‘self-selection” and according to the early staffers, “it in no small part was responsible for the generally high caliber of Peace Corps applicants.” Further “self-selection” took place with the applicant was sent an invitation to train for a specific project and was free to accept or decline the invitation. At the time, potential PCVs had listed various references on his or her questionnaire and they were contacted.  The attention that these people gave their replied surprised the Peace Corps Selection Staff and therefore was a tool for final decision making. Interestingly, . . .

In the very first years of the Peace Corps we all became familiar with a strange new nomenclature that dominated  Training Programs and was used by Alan Weiss (Nigeria 1962-63) as the title of his  humorous book about the Peace Corps published in 1968 by St. Martin’s Press, High Risk/High Gain. This new nomenclature was crafted by Peace Corps psychologists to grade Trainees while they were still in Training Programs at U.S. colleges and universities. The Peace Corps  Selection Division had  ‘agreed’ to measure potential PCVs with this classification. Besides High Risk/High Gain, a Trainee could also be High Risk/Low Gain; Low Risk/Low Gain, or considered by the Shrinks as an outstanding candidate for success in the Peace Corps as  High Gain/Low Risk. Based on these evaluations, Trainees were Selected-In or Selected-Out of the Peace Corps. More than a few of us lost good friends in those first days of the Peace Corps based on the High Risk/High Gain grading system. But how did High Risk/High Gain . . .

It might be interesting, in light of the discussion about the ET rate, to look at what else has changed in the fundamental attitudes and beliefs and practices of the agency. Here was some of the thinking and statements within the first year, 1961. In the first days of the Peace Corps (early ’61) the ‘experts’ working with the agency decided there should be a ‘corps’ of between 300 and 500. That would be a realistic number for a ‘pilot program’ to make sure  that the Peace Corps got off on the right foot. That idea, however, changed quickly after a Peace Corps ‘team’: Shriver, Wofford, Franklin Williams, and Edwin Bayley returned from a trip to Africa and Asia in May of ’61. They had received requests from around the world for PCVs. And at home there had been an onslaught of letters and cables coming to HQ from people who wanted to volunteer. . . .

I have been writing lately how RPCVs continue to serve the world long after their tours. Here is another example, and another RPCV from Ethiopia, Phil Lilienthal (Ethiopia 1965-67), who returned home and worked for the Peace Corps for five years as a lawyer in the General Counsel Office, then from 1969-74, Phil was a Regional Director and Deputy Director in Thailand. While a PCV in Ethiopia Phil worked in one of the government ministries and for his ‘second project’ he started a summer camp on the shores of Lake Langano down in the Rift Valley. This was the first such camp started by a PCV in Ethiopia.  Camps for kids have always been in Phil’s blood, his family has one in Maine, but about 9 years ago, in retirement, Phil turned the family business over to his son (who was also a PCV) and established a new one, this . . .

In those early days of the Peace Corps the greatest sin was leaving before one finished his or her tour. More than one person I know back in Ethiopia in the early Sixties would declare, “I don’t care what happens to me, I’m not ETing!” Now it seems to many PCVs ETing isn’t even a venial sin. The numbers of PCVs who pack it in before finishing their tour keeps climbing and no one at HQs is blinking an eye. It wasn’t always that way. In the first 22 months of the agency, 294 Volunteers did not complete their tours. Of these, 65 returned for compassionate reasons, usually family illness or death, another 37 had to resign for medical reasons. And sadly, six PCVs lost their lives–four in plane crashes, one in a jeep accident, and one as a result of illness. The total number to ET during those first 22 months for other . . .

This weekend, approximately 130 RPCVs from Ethiopia, going back to the early 1962 and the first group of PCVs, traveled back to Addis Ababa. Arriving at the International Airport, they were met by the Minister of Education and other officials of the Ethiopia government, were hosted by the American Ambassador at the Embassy and  yesterday, Monday morning, September 24, they were bussed to Jubilee Palace, Emperor Haile Selassie’s former residence, and greeted for a sit down meeting with the new President of Ethiopia, Ato Girma Wolde Giorgis. “He was not only very obviously happy to welcome us,” one RPCV wrote afterwards, “he also answered our questions at length and with aplomb.” This sort of ‘reception’ for former Volunteers returning to their host countries is not unusual. We are remembered fondly in many places in the world. But what is surprising, and gratifying, is seeing how many RPCVs continue their service to . . .